


that empty space

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Amnesia, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 20:13:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6624598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe she just has dimensional amnesia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that empty space

When it’s late and Anya crawls back into bed, her back muscles sore and crying and her uniform half-on half-off (leotards were supposed to be easy to remove, but turns out when you’re bone-tired _everything_ is hard) it's then that she is reminded of what brought her here. And she’s not just thinking of spider-webs and bungee strings or whatever she gets her hands on to swing around the city with. She’s thinking about everything, from the beginning of her life - or Araña’s life.

Her mother’s death. Her father’s death. Her losing her exoskeleton, switching from Araña to Spider-girl, changing costumes, moving on. It probably isn’t really moving on if she still thinks about it now, if it keeps her up and makes her finally slide out of her uniform and get through her bedtime ritual to see if _that_ will take all the memories off her mind. Then she’s brushing her teeth and thinking about her mother’s smile and she can’t help it, the tears start coming down and she looks like some parody of a happy clown, with blotchy eyes and toothpaste foam circling her mouth. She doesn’t move on and it feels like no one does. People get stuck on the past like a scratched CD that’s stuck on the chorus of a song when, dammit, it’s been well past three minutes and the song should’ve _ended_ by now.

Her dad, he wasn’t just scared about her jumping around clocking petty criminals as Araña. He knew better than that. He was scared about what she brought back with her from late-night vigilantism, things that amounted to more than cuts and scraped knees and dangerous smiles raring for another go. Anya’s scared of it now, too. She thinks she started understanding that as soon as her exoskeleton was ripped off.

That was _part of her_. Nobody had the right to take it away but people had been doing that forever - she’s not sure why she didn’t see that coming. Somebody took her mother from her, and they had no right doing that. Then it was her father and she was broken by it but shocked? Maybe not as much. It’s that feeling you get when a bad thought pops into your head at just the right time and you know it’s true, that it’s happened and it’s real but you don’t want to face it right away because you don’t want the confirmation. Anya feels it a lot, now, and no amount of building-jumping is going to help her get away from it.

Now she’s pouring herself a glass of water and drinking past the minty after-taste to get to the parched part of her that’s been doing so much running. And she’s reminded of something that she’s not sure she even really knows, just a lot of coincidences rolled up into a memory. She’ll finish off a gymnastics routine and make a turn that feels natural, just to her left, eyes wide and heart racing and she’s looking for approval from that empty space. It’s some evolved sense of déjà vu, something she can’t account for but it’s always had a place in her. That empty space, that _person_ , so familiar but so unknown. She hates it. Of all the parts of her life she’s had taken away from her, this is the one she can’t even come to terms with.

Anya knows heroes deal with weird world-altering shit all the time. But she doesn’t have that, she doesn’t have the clones or the resurrections or betrayals the way other heroes do, the way other _spiders_ do. It’s not her. She just has good old simple heart-breaking death (lucky her). But she can’t think of any other way to explain this. Otherwise, there’s no justification for her sitting on her bed looking through her phone and her social media and trying to find somebody she doesn’t really have any leads on. A girl, black hair, constant - constant in her life before, whatever it was, constant in her life now if solely for the reason she has no idea who the _hell_ she is. There are no tweets, no tagged photos, nothing at all to draw her back. Just an empty feeling and the sun coming up through the window and the inability to move on.

Maybe she just has dimensional amnesia. Even just thinking about something like that makes her laugh, because isn't that silly? But the laugh turns into a yawn and she's grounded again, eyes dry and open and still tender from the crying before. It's not so ridiculous. Hell, two seconds ago she was listing off all the weird things that happen to the other spiders, and it's probably not even a complete list (there's too much history, just the first Spider-man must have decades worth of unnecessary drama to filter through). She doesn't know who to go to for something like this - she's not really running low on adults to contact about it, even if she doesn't count all the spiders, but she also doesn't want to put that much faith in someone else when it comes to _her_ past. Doesn't really want to go to anybody, and maybe that's selfish and prideful but she'd rather get to the bottom of it herself. Maybe another time, when it's not so late it's early and she's not chugging along on some last-minute McDonalds and too little sleep to even consider.

She needs at least a _wink_ of rest.

So Anya doesn’t think about the other girl. Doesn’t wonder if she’s alive. Doesn’t wonder, assuming she is alive, if she stays awake thinking about this too, but for Anya. Doesn’t wonder if she ever wanders into someplace she’s been going for years and takes a table with two seats, about to order a second meal as if she’s waiting for somebody who will never come. Doesn’t ask herself if that’s why she can’t stay in Accela anymore for longer than an hour without feeling angry. Without pulling on the suit and sitting on roofs and not even really patrolling, just watching, waiting and waiting but the only thing that ever comes is some useless bag-snatcher.

God, does she - does she close her locker and expect someone to appear past the metal, someone whose face is a blur but whose presence is so warm and recognizable but so _empty_?

Anya hopes she doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> rewrote this bc i posted it before but i didn't like it enough ?? i'm still not so sure about this but here it is :-)
> 
> i keep thinking about how anya and lynn just like... stopped knowing each other after heart of the spider (i'm pretty sure? i might have missed some pertinent issues) but like isn't that disheartening... they were Best Friends and now?? she doesn't even talk about her? so this is my ... explanation, i guess.
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
